Slumbering WIP-- Revival

 Flat out, before joining the front.

 Close-up of the shoulder increases.

 Trying it on, and before separating the sleeves (but after doing the neckline, which was very cool).

This is using Susie Meyers' Contiguous method. It's a set-in sleeve, but you cast-on like with a raglan (that is to say, you cast on and make increases rather than cast on numerous times, putting the pieces together as you normally would with set-in sleeves). The ingenuity is amazing, but I'm not completely sold--I think the shoulders in my Tailored Sweater cardigan (see Tidewater Cardigan) fit much better, but I'm withholding judgment until this sweater is completed. It's stalled. It's not summer anymore.

I've been knitting for others--today I finished a pair of school socks for Bub (he hates the socks he has to wear with his uniform, the seam at the toes is rough and I've been knitting him a pair of socks in secret to surprise him with) and I have a sweater I'm working on for Itty Bitty. And then I'm supposed to use the leftover sock yarn and knit my mother a pair of black socks, but I have less than the weight of Bub's socks. She has small feet, but I'm not sure they're that small.

Hopefully I get to this Ribbed Lace Bolero soon, for myself. I think it would be handy to wear with some strappy dresses.

Can anyone else believe it's already November?

FO-Rainbow Coriolis Socks

They're finally done and I love them, even if they don't match (the beginning of one end of the skein was considerably redder than the end, and the results belie the fact).

They will go fantastically with the red Birkenstocks I bought this summer. Yes, I'm going to wear Birkenstocks with socks.

Python and polygons

Hubby started teaching Bub Python (what I understand to be a beginner programming language that not that many people use, please feel free to correct me) on the weekends. And Bub loves it. Yesterday Hubby had Bub figuring out how many degrees it took to make different-shaped polygons and at the end, had him figure out the pattern of the answers. I was very amused, but thought it was so cool. And he'll remember it way better than if we just gave him a chart.

Capelet Doppelganger

Once upon a time, a few years ago, I had an infatuation with Twinkle knits. They looked so high fashion, and had the allure of being knit quickly. I bought enough Twinkle Soft Chunky for the Best Friend Cardigan, but alas, I was still new to sweater construction and the instructions were confusing. So eventually, instead of the Best Friend Cardigan, I knit the Princess Capelet. It was fast, it was cute (especially the pom-poms). It was hard to figure out what to wear with it without looking ridiculous.

Fast forward to today: I saw something very similar at Anthropologie. It's listed as a Tulip Sleeve Cardigan, $228 from Twinkle Knits. It's a bit longer, the sleeves don't end quite the same, and this one has no pom-poms, but I'm excited, because that means the time is now for my little capelet. If I were ever to wear it, the time is now. If I could only figure out what to wear with the durn thing.

From the garden

Last year I forgot to take a picture of the pears. They were cool, because of the way they grew on the branch, kind of in a spiral, and close to each other. This year they aren't the same, but I took some pictures, nonetheless. I also took a few of apples, figs and something bright (I don't know the name of it).

 Above, a close-up of apples, with the flash. Below, panned out, without the flash.

 I forget the name of this, but those spiky things are the seeds.

 And picked figs, inside.

Kindle and Nook, meet your cases

Hubby got me a little gift. . . a Nook Color. He's putting Android on it (thereby nulling its warranty) so that I can use it as a tablet. Last year he got me a Kindle, but I'd put off getting a case for it. I've been wanting something from Oberon Design, but there were so many choices it was hard to decide on just one. When I found out I had a Nook coming to me as well, it was a little easier and I ordered them together. The cases came yesterday:

 The left one for the Kindle is Tree of Life, in Chocolate; the right one is Roof of Heaven, in Marigold. The backs are a continuation of the scenes, but I forgot to take pictures of them.

The Nook is a little bigger than the Kindle and noticeably heavier. I'm happier to keep the Kindle for reading, and the Nook-cum-tablet for as yet unknown purposes. The cases came with two little corresponding charms (that rather match the two cases I ordered), I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with them. They're a little big to go on a charm bracelet (and pewter, besides) and I don't regularly wear necklaces anymore.

At home Hubby has been repainting our bedroom. It was originally supposed to take a week, but that was in the middle of August. Since then, it's been on the weekends here and there. This weekend we're supposed to look for white spots and do the baseboards. We've been out of our bedroom for three weekends now. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of that after we're all done.

What happened to August

It was a lost month. There's been nothing to report in new Scotches because it seems to increase snoring (is that TMI?) so I've mandated a decrease (okay, a stoppage) of drinking (and I'm sleeping better now, thank you very much).

And as to knitting, I hurt my hands lifting a big heavy box of pots and pans and couldn't knit for three weeks. And I couldn't exercise because the one time I don't take the time to stretch after working out, I pulled a hamstring. It's still not recovered.

Although my Revival sweater has been making some progress:

This is an old picture of the sleeve cap. I've actually joined the fronts, and knit the collar band two and a half times (yeah, two and a half times), and I'm ready to separate the sleeves out and knit the body. Oh, and I also soaked and blocked what I had to ensure my sleeve caps were long enough.

The biggest change though, has been Bub. Originally we'd signed him up for K12 (an online, public charter school). Then we switched to Dehesa. While this was going on, it literally took us the entire month to get shipping labels to return all of K12's curriculum and electronic equipment. And then we chanced upon an open house and threw everything out the window and decided to enroll Bub in a private, Mandarin-immersion school. It's good though, he'll get three and a half hours of Mandarin instruction every day in the language, math, science and geography, and because they said he could join their first grade class, he also gets a hour of Spanish. Add German school on Saturday mornings, and I think his schedule is full (this is without extracurriculars). We're pulling him out of Sunday Chinese school--no reason to send him to that on the weekend if he's getting it "at school".

We shall see if there's more posts in September.

FO-Tidewater Cardigan

These are crappy pics, but crappy pics are better than no pics. Without further ado (or buttons):

The second and fourth picture were with flash, and I haven't made buttons yet. I think that won't be until the fall, when it's cooler and I want to turn the oven on.

This was four different colored skeins of Dream in Color Everlasting 8-ply, slowly alternated from the top-down, knit using Tuulia Samedi's The Tailored Sweater Method. It took three and a half months, largely a result of me not liking pooling, ripping and redoing portions. There's a section in the middle where I was alternating three different skeins and that was not fun. The bottom and button bands were seed stitch; the neck band and cuffs were 1x1 ribbing. The fit is very good.

Overall, I like this sweater. Hopefully the alternated yarn looks gradual, because I'm not knitting this sweater again!

I like the weight of this sweater though, so fingering weight seems right. It'll just take me forever to knit a sweater, but if it's a sweater I wear and enjoy, it's worth it.

The (CAVA) eagle has landed

All 72.5 pounds of curriculum arrived today. I haven't unpacked it all, I figure I should open up that DVD they sent me a few weeks ago and do the orientation first. But good grief, 72.5 pounds! And I assume that if the program doesn't work for Bub, I have to ship all of this back!

FO-Twinkle Best Friend Cardigan, oversized for my Mom

Can you see that I've been busy?

 Originally, I restarted this project because I had the yarn, and I wanted to try a quick contiguous project to see how it worked. For the most part this fit the bill. I took a look at the Contiguous KAL but I didn't want to end up with an asymmetrical doll sweater and it was hard for me because after a certain point in the directions, we were supposed to have done something differently and I couldn't visualize it in my head enough to understand, so I decided to just plow ahead and try a full-sized sweater (albeit in huge, chunky yarn). Also, I wanted to knit Revival, but the yarn I have didn't make gauge and I was still trying to figure out the pattern (this is before the revision to the pattern, btw). Thus, this project.

 These are some notes of what I did:

c/o 16 sts.

Set up (ws): p1, pm, k1 (for shs), pm, p5, pm, p 9 sts to before end, pm, p to 2 sts before end, pm, k1 (shs), pm, p1.

Row 2 (rs): k1, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, k to m, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k1

Row 3: p2, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, p to m, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, k to 2 sts before end, sl 1, k1.

Row 4: k3, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, k to m, sm, m1, k to m, m1, sm, p1, sm, m1, k1, p to 2 sts before end, sl 1, p1.

Row 5: p4, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, p to m, sm, m1, p to m, m1, sm, k1, sm, m1, k to 2 sts before end, sl 1, k1. (39 sts).

Rows 6: Like row 4.

Row 7: Like rows 3 & 5)

Repeat for rows 8 & 9. (In hindsight, I should have stopped at Row 7, the sweater turned out a bit larger than expected.)

pside: c/o 9 sts for front. 

K4, pm, p1, 6 st cable patt, p2, pm, k to 3 sts before SM, sl1, pm, m1, k2, remove old marker, k1, remove old marker, k2, m1, pm, sl 1, k to next m, remove m, k to next m, remove m, k to 3 sts before marker, sl 1, pm, m1, k2, remove marker, k1, remove marker, k2, m1, pm, sl 1, k2, [set up cable AND crochet c/o additional sts], PM, p2, k2, c/o 9 sts (pm 4 sts in for button band).

Work ws w/o sleeve increases.

Next row: k4, sm, cable [k1, p6, k2], sm, p to m, sm, [sleeve cap] p to m, sm, [back] p to m, sm, [sleeve cap] p to m, sm, o to m, cable [k2, p6, k1], sm, k4. 

4 sts for button band.

right side is using right side cable-- sts held in back

left side is using left side cable-- sts held in front

buttonholes on WS (even rows): k1, k2tog, yo, k1.

Maybe in the second picture you can see that next to the sleeve increases, I slipped the stitch on the knit side a la Tuulia and her Tailored Sweater Method, and I think it looks very nice that way. Not a fan of the purl stitch for the seam line though--in bulky yarn, it just looks holey:

What I wish I'd done differently:

-Not quite so many increases for the back because it ended up a little puffy (see back picture).

-Different increases (probably Cat Bordhi's LaRinc and LaLinc) because that would have been far less holey (take a look at the shoulder detail picture). 

-Better yarn. Ah, but I didn't know it would turn out all right!

But, my mother is more or less satisfied with it (her complaints: it's acrylic, and too holey at the top) and now I have a much better understanding of how the contiguous method works.

It's all about the worms

 I'm still confused as to why we are instructed to use moist newspaper, but this is what you see when we first open up the bin now, followed by worms (below) when you uncover some newspaper layers.

 A close-up of some of the worms:

 And one more:

Having the wrigglers has been a bit more work than I'd expected, I suppose mostly because I've ended up doing it all by myself rather than have Bub help out as much as he said he was going to (probably why we're going to hold off on getting a dog, too). The newspaper seems to dry out fairly quickly, but the underlayers stay moist and the worms have plumped up a lot. They seem happy. They have little colonies by the food, and they seem to congregate in the middle of the bin, for the most part staying away from the corners for some reason.

But they haven't all died, so I'm thrilled. And the bottom layer looks like rich, dark soil (I know it's worm casings, but that's what we're doing all of this for, right?) so I know they're eating and everything is going the way it's supposed to. Today I gave them a new newspaper layer and some eggshells.

What you have to understand is what I didn't post about the worms for the past two weeks: first, we'd been beset by fruit flies, who very much liked the fruit scraps the worms had gotten, and I guess newspaper doesn't cover up the smell well enough to hide it from fruit flies. But last week, I discovered a spider infestation--hundreds of tiny, red spiders all over the lid and edge of the box, along with a much larger, pregnant-looking (swollen) spider that I managed to fling out of the box that was in the top layer of newspaper. Hubby joked that next we'd have a plague of birds. But for the most part, they seem to be gone now, leaving red wriggling worms.

Worms, worms, they're good for. . .

Some of our worms are starting to look really big, and there hasn't been any other huge exodus (if for no other reason than the fact that most of them were wiped out during the first one), they seem to be doing well now! They're eating, they're thriving, they're reproducing (I saw little tiny baby worms). This is good. Very good. And slightly more work than expected--according to the Heifer International guide, you have to aerate the newspaper, keep it moist, I'm not sure why we have to use newspaper but I'll look into it more in the future. The bottom is starting to look loamy, but I wish we could get rid of the fruit flies. All of the food is already buried under several layers of newspaper. Pictures to come later.

Unnamed doll

She's in a hand-me-down Old Navy top that was refashioned as a dress, and the Little Leaves doll sweater. She looks happy. A happy, unnamed doll that went to South Coast today.

quick (Contiguous + The Tailored Sweater) = Top-Down Twinkle Best Friend Cardigan, take two

This is the most awesome sweater (it's still a work in progress):

You are looking at a Twinkle Best Friend Cardigan, with the set-in sleeves, worked from a cast-on and then with increases, to shape the back, front and sleeves. It is so amazing I cannot wait until I'm done to start talking about it, I have to gush now. Because I started with a cable cast-on of 16 stitches, did increases in between different sets of markers, and voila, set-in sleeves, top-down, with one contiguous piece of yarn. I did do little things using Tuulia's method though, like the slip-stitches on the outside of the sleeve increases to simulate a seam, it just looks so polished that way.

Looks like it's going to be my mother's though. It's a little big for me, and she keeps asking me when I'm going to knit her something. Maybe I'll go back and knit one for myself. . . someday.

Criminal or. . . ?

Last week I read this article about Cars 2 (it just came out). Basically, it says that they made a sequel to Cars even though it didn't perform well, so that they could sell junk to kids. It also says that they created the plot (international spying) so that they could sell MORE crap. Internationally. All the little kids I know were excited about this movie coming out, and I'm sure their parents are going to pay for it. Last Sunday the Target ad's cover was Cars 2 merchandise. When you opened it, it had a folded section with more Cars 2 stuff. Die cast cars, cereal, water toys, bed sheets, ad nauseum. I know it's smart, if you can get into that racket, but wow, I'm just speechless.

Bub has asked why candy is at the check-out registers and we've talked about impulse buys (amusing our cashier), so now we've also talked about creating a product just to sell it. I think eventually there will be something that he really likes, aside from books, that he really wants, but when he does, I want it to be because he finds it cool and not because some schmuck in a suit marketed it to him.

Autism from an International Angle

This weekend we watched two films where the main characters have autism. The first film we watched was Chocolate, a Thai martial arts film (with transvestites!) where the heroine is able to learn martial arts from watching martial arts, and then goes to collect her sick mother's debts. (I'm leaving out sooooooo much of the plot.) After watching, they had a bloopers reel that showed that none of the stunts were CGI and were in fact, done by real people. The main character got the most damage since she was doing all of the fighting and never got a break, and she looked like a kid. That would accidentally get kicked in the face, or cut her hand open, etc. But she was really good. I couldn't figure out why the movie was called Chocolate, though.

The second film we watched was called Ben X, about a boy with Asperger's who's bullied at school and finally decides to do something about it. Chocolate was dubbed over; Ben X had subtitles.

I enjoyed Chocolate better than Ben X, because Chocolate had tons of martial arts sequences and cheesy music. Not that I actually enjoy cheesy music, but if I'm going to have suspended disbelief, Thai mafia transvestites and cheesy music lighten up an otherwise grim and graphically violent (did you see Kill Bill Volume One? It was like that, but without being hilarious) movie. Ben X was depressing in its realism.

A comedy of catastrophes--tweaking recipes

There's a Frugal Gourmet recipe I used to do all the time when I lived in San Francisco about ten years ago. What I really loved about it was that I typically already had all of the ingredients, so you didn't have to make a special effort to assemble it. Now that I don't have my own kitchen, every once in awhile, when I'm able to, I try to make it again, but it never turns out right. This time was no exception. I had a host of problems:

1-the proportions were not exact;
2-it might have been cilantro rather than parsley that I used (but I'm pretty sure it was parsley) and also, it wasn't enough;
3-it was supposed to be 1 egg for one and a half pounds of meat but instead it was two and a quarter pounds (again, proportions);
4-at the last moment, I discovered that contrary to my assumption, there was no flour in the kitchen to roll the meatballs in;
5-instead of two cups of tomato juice, I gave three or four plum tomatoes a whirl in the blender and added water;
6-the pan I used had no lid so instead of simmering, covered, for 45 minutes, it was uncovered, reducing faster.

Nonetheless, here's a picture:

(Sorry, vegetarians, who find meat disgusting.) It turned out all right, more or less. It was edible. I'm blessed with a husband who seems to think that everything I cook tastes delicious (even when I don't think that). I think his stomach loves me.

I heart Chocolate Stout Float

Have you ever had a chocolate stout float? It's like a root beer float, but instead of root beer, it's made with a chocolate stout (yes, another English beer). It has actual cocoa powder in it. It's absolutely delicious. Especially when it's also made with Breyer's Vanilla Ice Cream. But now I digress.

Pictured above, is Young's Double Chocolate Stout. I'm especially amused for some reason by the "Pure Luxury" text at the top. You can also try a float with a lambic, but I don't care for that so much.

Wormageddon

I didn't have time to post earlier last week when it actually happened, so this is catch-up. The day after we moved our red wigglers into their new home, this sight befell me:

That's right. Our worms tried to escape and then perished on the floor. Hubby thinks we didn't use enough newspaper and didn't feed them enough. I felt so bad! So we (I) tore up another newspaper and added more food for the rest of the worms that were left in there. Hopefully they make it.

Yeah, those worms are it. That's all that's left.

FO-Cupcake Hat for a newborn

 With the pom-pom, and without.

My pom-poms end up wonky. I think it was the yarn, but I'm not sure, since I've successfully made pom-poms before. This time I added sprinkles. Also, I scaled it down to fit a newborn. It's for my cousin's new baby, I hope they like it, but I'm not sure--do non-knitters treasure hand knits as much as knitters? This was almost completely knit out of Caron. I only use Caron for baby knits. I feel weird when I knit with it.

Composting With Earthworms (red wigglers)

We're doing some unit studies from Heifer International. We've read a book about chickens and worms and how they both help the soil. The next step was to build a composting bin.

 You have no idea how hard it was to find a plastic bin with the right dimensions. It has to be opaque,  eight to 14 inches deep, and about 12 x 12 per pound of worms. We had, by my estimation, about half a pound, but this way we can expand. Anyway, I ended up at our local hardware store.

 The worms, from Uncle Jim's worm farm. Two worm vendors are actually the same company though; I chose the other one, because they guaranteed their worms live upon arrival, but upon ordering, got emails from the Uncle Jim's.

 Drilling holes into the bin for ventilation (top) and drainage (bottom).

 Setting the worms free in the bin.

 A bunch of damp newspaper, along with a couple handfuls of soil from the yard.

 And a couple of the red wigglers themselves. Some were dead, but most seemed to be alive, so here's to hoping this works.

And then Itty Bitty woke up from her nap, but she woke up in a good mood and played peek-a-boo before I went in (you could hear her). The picture above is how she "hides". Just like an ostrich.

More weekday round-up

Some more stuff we did a week or two ago:

 I broke out my LEGOs from when I was a kid, and Bub really liked them. We also made things with his LEGO set (see above).

 Later on we tried to construct cubes using miniature marshmallows and toothpicks. Well, Bub constructed, I "supervised" (this did not actually involve me eating the marshmallows). Bub had a good time with the marshmallows. It was definitely from eating them throughout.

Memorial Day weekend we took the kids to the circus. This is the pre-show where the kids are invited to go down to the ring. The kids had a good time, although it was two hours rather than one. Itty Bitty did not have an attention span that long. Bub, on the other hand, had so many questions we had to talk to the circus performers afterwards to get them answered:

-How did the sphere that the motorcycles were in separate? (Hydraulics)

-What is that giant ring called that the acrobats went up and down on (no, not the trapeze). (I forgot the answer.)

Bub didn't actually care to get anyone's autograph or take a picture with anyone, he just wanted answers to his questions.

Father's Day prep

We were supposed to go do a Meet-Up group craft today, but I found out last night that Hubby was expecting a delivery that might require a signature. Thus, we did our crafting at home today, in preparation for Father's Day. The first one is mine, obviously, with the kids handprints cut out.

 This was Itty-Bitty's contribution:

 And Bub made a card. This is the outside:

 And this is the inside, complete with ahem, flair.

His handwriting has been improving, I've got to say. And that, is a very good thing. I wanted to get Hubby a bottle for Father's Day, but taking two small children to a liquor store full of breakable bottles just doesn't sound like a good idea.